Charles t



DY-BI'NG.

No. 10,664. Patented Mar. 21, 1854.

UNITED sTATEs PATENT oEEi CHARLES T. 'APPLETON OF ROXBURY,MASSACHUSETTS.

PROCESS FOR DYEING.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 10,664, dated March 21, 1854.

To all whom t may concern.'

Be it known that I, CHARLES T. APPLEToN, of Roxbury, in the county ofNorfolk and- Cominonwealth of Massachusetts, have invented certain newand useful Improve ments in' the Art of Dyeing; and I hereby declare thefollowing to be a full, clear, and

exact description of the same,.reference be! ing had to the annexeddrawings, making,

part of this specification, in which- Figure 1 is a view of themachinery of which I make use, showing the method by which it isactuated; Fig. 2, a section through the same, and Fig. 3 a view of theparts which communicate the alternate rotary motion to the rollers.

In the machines now used'in dyeing the goods having been stitchedtogether, are4 run in onel direction over rollers immersed in a vatcontaining dyeing liquor. For certain colors which take very readily tothe cloth or the mordants .with which it has been saturated, thisprocess is found effectual and cheap, but experience has proved thatmany colors cannot be put on uniformly and with exact-ness by thesemachines, and for such the dyer has been obliged to resort to handdyeing, in which process, thel goods having been stitched together,eightI or ten pieces are wound or reeled ybythe opy erative for theirentire length through a tub I or vat of dyeing liquor, and thisoperation is i often many times repeated before the rel quired shade ofcolor is attained.

In my invention the vat and rollers used are similar to the machines nowin use (exf cept that the rollers being smaller moref` cloth iscontained in the vat) kbut the mo= tion instead of beingin one directionis re- The rollers are alternately roi ciprocal. tated in one directionand the opposite carrying the cloth only a few feet in each direction insuch a manner thatv the whole l fabric is immersed in the dyeing liquorsevthat may be required for the kind of color or t-lie depth of 'shadeto be produced, while,

by a motion in one direction the speed of the machine would have to bedifferently adjusted to every varietyof'color and shade wanted, and thefirst pieces in a series of goods passing slowly through the vat wouldabsorb the coloring matter, making a deiiciency for those whichfollowed.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my inventionI willproceed to describe the method in which I have carried it out.

-A is the vat which contains the dyeing liquor; B', a strong frame ofsuitable material fitting closely within the vat, but which may at anytime be withdrawn therefrom.

'In the upper bars of this frame run the roll` ers a a and in the lowerbars of the frame the carrying rollers 6,. c are cog-wheels upon theshaft-s of the extrem-e rollers of the upper series, which engage withthe gear wheels d upon the line shaft e by which ymeans the rollers aare driven in the manner to be hereinafter described. Any num ber of theintermediate rollers may be simi` larly driven which may be deemednecessaryV to prevent injury from too great tension of the cloth.Immediately over the rollers at are placed other rollers f which pressthe cloth to the surface of the rollers a, and as the latter are turned,the cloth is fed backl i and forth through the machine..v

the other of two worm gears it h in the following manner: i is ametallicframe hinged at 7c to the post C. le is a metallic arin in whichthe frame z" rests, the latter les being thrown over into theposition'seenin f Fig. 3 by the spring Z. m2 m3 are vertical shaftsrunning in the frame z" and carrying the worm gear h ZL. These shaftsare driven by the co-rds a a from the main driving pulley D.

per extremity a cam p which bearsagainst the side of the frame i. Thiscam is con 'structed of two segments of circles of differ-v 0 is a shaftsuitably'- boxed in the arm 7c and carrying at its upf ent radii, and soarranged that when the K' segment of longer radius bears against the iframe c" it shall cause the worm gear h to engage with the wheel g as inFig. l, and' when the short radius of the cam 79 bea-rs against theframe, the latter is thrown byV ythe spring Z intofthe position seen inFig.

g is a cog wheel upon the shaft` e which ,910 l is caused to engagealternately with one or- 3 in which the wheel g is driven by theOperation: The cloth is threaded into the- `machine as seen in Fig. 2.The frame is- Vplaced in the vat which receives the requi- The latter,

site quantity of dyeing liquor. should rise at least sufficiently highto cover the lower` rollers Z). An intermittent rot-ary motion is thencommunicated to the rollers d as described, by vwhich means the cloth isrepeatedly passed through the dyeing liquor. The operation being watchedby the attendant, who immediately withdraws the dye liquor or the clothas he sees the desired color is attained.

Theframe may be withdrawn from the vat, or the jmachinery may be soarranged that the revolution ofthe cam p may be interrupted at anymoment, in `which case the rollers will continue to revolve in onedirection and the cloth will be'run out of the machine. Y

It is evident that a variety of methods may be adopted for the purposeof producing the intermittent rotary motion of the rollers. The oneabove described, however,

I have found to be both simple and efficient. There are also othermethods of feeding the 'p cloth through the machine which may at l timesbefound useful, for instance,-in place 1 of the rollers a f', a singleroller may be employed at each end of the machine, to which are attachedshort aprons, to which the ends of the cloth may be stitched, and inthis manner the eXtreme ends ofthe string of goods will be equally welldyed with any part of it. The exact amount of surface motion to be givento the rollers is not i malterial. In general however itshould not beless than double the distance between the upper and lower rollers.

The advantages which my machine pos- -sesses over those heretofore inuse result from the fact that many colors which can- I not be dyed uponthe old machines may be applied by it without diiliculty, and thus thetedious and expensive process of hand dyeing may be dispensed with. Onediiiculty with the old machines arises from the fact that the dye liquoras before stated, becomes sensibly weakened before the cloth has passedonce through it, and thus the goods are no-t uniformly` dyed. Anotherresults from the fact that in passing through the vat once in the oldmachines, the cloth made many dips into the dye liquor or remained for aconsiderable time immersed in it, and thus it often happened that theshade produced by onc'e running through the machine was not sufficientlyintense, while that produced by a secondY passage was deeper than wasrequired. In both these intances the hand machine has heretofore beenresortedto.I The diiiiculties 'are, however, in each case removed by theemployment of my machine,\as the whole of the cloth is immersed almostat the same instant, andthe operation may be watched Vas it proceeds,and the cloth or the liquor withdrawn at any instant the desired shadeis attained. a

I do not intend to lilnit myself .to any particular machinery for thepurpose of producing the reciprocating motion of the cloth, as thisforms no part of my inven* ytio-n, and a great variety of machinery maybe employed for the purpose, which may be actuated either by hand or byother power. And, I do not intend running the cloth through the machinefrom end to` end back and forth as has heretofore been prac ticed inmachine and hand dyeing; but `What I do claim as my invention and desireto secure by Letters Patent vis- Communicating to the goods while in thevata reciprocating motion back and forth of at least double the distancefrom the upper rollers to the surface of the liquor, so as to insure theimmersion of the whole material Vonce for each vibration, by which meansI am enabled to `give to the whole of the fabric any required number ofdips,

Witnesses: v

S. Gr. SNELLING, WM. C. APPLETON.

o. APPLETON.

